Does anyone have some examples of use cases for timestamped random entropy values?
It's interesting that a blockchain of random values with timestamps is created by this, but I fail to see how this helps in most of the applications listed in their applications poster.[1] (warning - PDF)
There needs to be some other time-stamped blockchain that allows the submission of hashes of the results of applying the random data. Otherwise you could retroactively tweak your results, in a manner like phi-hacking.
[1] https://csrc.nist.gov/CSRC/media/Presentations/usages-of-pub...
I think you are meant to commit to using the value of the beacon at a future point in time, e.g. when you're preregistering your trial methodology.
Couldn't you also just use the (salted) beacon value itself as the key for a HMAC of the ordered list of the people you assigned?
> WARNING: Do NOT use Beacon generated values as cryptographic secret keys!
As a thought experiment what would happen if you did this?
Someone who knew or guessed that you were doing it could find your key very quickly by trying out every beacon value in the time range your key was generated in